For Whose Sake
by Nom Faux
Summary: Finnick Odair allows the Capitol's elite to do with him as they like. Somewhere in the haze of indifferent clientele, he makes a friend.
1. For Whose Sake

**Spoilers: **Things about Finnick revealed in _Mockingjay.  
><em>**Warnings: **Strong sexual themes (Finnick is a sex worker, yo!). Other warnings to come for later chapters, I think.

I wrote this story in first-person present tense, in the hope of keeping with the way the _Hunger Games_ canon is written.

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><p>For Whose Sake<p>

It's hard, sometimes, for me to keep sight of what exactly I have become. Am I a person being used for my assets? Am I a pretty bauble who was brought into this world just to be enjoyed? I don't always know which is better. Whatever I am is passed from hand to hand, always finding a smile and a kind word for a stranger who only knows my name because they could not look anywhere without seeing it. I don't hold that against them, because I certainly won't remember who they are once they've gone.

Annie is the only thing of which I am constantly certain. I know that by attending parties with this nobleman or that Duchess, by posing for cameras and laughing often enough, Annie is safe. When I think of Annie, I know exactly who I am: I am Finnick Odair, Victor from District 4. I am healthy. I am happy. I really am happy. The smiles are not forced, nor are the jokes fabrications. I enjoy what I do, only I feel that it is all misplaced. I should be happy with Annie, not the people who pay for my time and do not care for me. I resent even the few genuine, enjoyable moments I have with my clients because I cannot be happy without thinking of Annie. I cannot think of Annie without thinking of President Snow, or of how he could kill Annie with a snap of his fingers. I have nightmares about Snow's fingers.

Sometimes I see Snow's fingers in the dark, when a client is above me, touching me. Sometimes I imagine Snow's lips where they are not, where there is only a well-meant smile from the latest Capitol citizen who has come to admire my beauty. When these phantoms of Snow come to me, I have to leave reality and go elsewhere while I am touched in the most intimate places, where even Annie has yet to go. It is not my clients' fault that I sometimes see the malevolence of Snow in their faces. They don't care for me, but that's not their fault. They don't know better. They think I want this as much as they do, that I enjoy frivolity, and I am the one who tells them that. The Capitol people are raised in such a disgusting way, I know it would be a waste of time to tell them if I am unhappy. I grin for them; I caress them; I kiss them and stroke them; I reassure even the ones who ask, "may I kiss you here?" that they can do whatever they'd like. They cannot hurt me. When I need to, I can go somewhere far away with Annie. My clients' depraved indifference and Snow's phantoms can't touch me when I am with Annie.

I am ready to do this for as long as Snow wants, because it is what he wants. Because it is best for Annie. The idea that I might never see Annie again, that she may never be whole, is enough to fill my heart with ice. The still-worse alternative is that I stop this and Annie is killed, and Snow lets me live-because he will let me live-and I spend the rest of my days living my own life but living it without her. A life devoid of Annie Cresta's eyes or smile, or the possibility of seeing them again, is no life at all. But then, nor is a life where I am pliant to the will of anyone who has enough coin to claim me. In either life, I have no friends, and my memories of Annie both comfort and haunt me.

I do not expect this to change. Who would, in my place? Weekly, nightly, I am assigned to a new client, and my duties do not change. This is a patten that has kept Annie and me alive, if incompletely.

I am twenty-one, in my third year of playing the role of pretty bauble, when my handlers tell me to wait at one of my usual hotels for a male client who wants my time. I've spent an hour reclined on the velvety bed when he walks in. He is a man who looks to be my age, and whose skin is a natural bronze, free of any of the Capitol's ridiculous dyes or tattoos. Even in the dark, I can see that he is lean, maybe even healthy. He is unusual for the Capitol, but he has paid for me nonetheless.

"Hello," I croon in the voice I mastered for nights like this.

"Oh, you don't need to-"

I've taken off my shirt (more fine Capitol fabric) before I process his stammering. He does not want intimacy, at least not yet. This, too, is confusing, since the clients who want conversation usually spend the day with me, rather than the night. Still, I comply and leave my shirt half-hanging from my body. The man watches me, and I watch him.

After a minute of this, he reaches out with a warm hand and touches my shoulder. There is no desire under his skin; just concern, and perhaps even gentleness.

"I'm so sorry," he says.

That's when I begin to cry.


	2. Jericho

**Spoilers: **_Mockingjay._  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>None for this chapter.  
>This is now my first multi-chaptered piece on this site! How exciting! Thanks for sticking around.<p>

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><p>2. Jericho<p>

I do not remember falling asleep, although I wake up in the hotel's luxurious bed. It must be mid-afternoon: I have slept for over twelve hours, but still I feel exhausted. As my brain slowly restarts itself, I realize I am very alone. Perhaps my sudden display of emotion scared off the man who came to visit me last night.

Had he come at all? Had I just fallen asleep and dreamed up a caring stranger? I tried to remember the man, but it was like walking against a current. It had been too dark to really commit anything about him to memory, and the feelings his kindness brought out of me have obscured him even further. I am convinced I imagined him, except I do not think I am capable of inventing a voice as kind as that man's had been.

I get up and cross to bathroom, thinking I might as well use its excellent shower as long as it's been paid for. The bathroom is tiled white from floor to ceiling, with the occasional red tile placed at random as an accent. This goes well with the redness of the bedroom, but red is in no way my favorite color. It's not until I shed my clothes and step into the hot water that I am really awake. My confusion runs off me with the many scented soaps I use. I am sure that man was never there; whoever paid for me simply got scared and didn't show. That is a common occurrence, after all.

When I step out of the shower and into a soft, cottony bathrobe, I am singing an old fishing song that I learned on the docks. I am pleased to have all this time to myself. I might exercise a bit or go to the park on the east side of the city to enjoy some fresh air-

I must have been blinking right when I stepped back into the bedroom, because when I look at the bed, the man from my dream is there, reading a book. I freeze in place. When he looks up at me, I hold my breath. His eyes are curious, a deep brown at the center, radiating out to a shimmering gold. I know those eyes see me scan the room and try to to form a plan: could run out the door or the window; if I move quickly, I could use the lamp as a weapon, because for one mad second I am convinced that he is a ghost or a mutt and somehow a lamp would save me from either of those. He just makes no sense, being here last night, then gone, then here again. Of course, he probably has a key into the room just as I have. He is a person who uses doors and walks on two feet and does not visit people in their dreams. With clever eyes like his, this man must know I would not be so terrified of him had I not just decided he couldn't exist.

We watch each other again (because last night _had_ happened), and again it's his soothing voice that releases me:

"Hi, Finnick. Would you like to sit?"

Somehow I am uncomfortable with this man knowing my name, though, of course, all my clients know who I am. I nod mutely and do as he suggests. When I am beside him on the bed, his eyes do not slip through the gap in my robe that I know allows him view of my body. _He does not want me_, I realize. Part of me wishes he did, so he would look away from my face. I do not know what to do, pinned down by eyes like his.

"I've brought you books."

As he holds up the short stack of volumes I'd not registered until now, I see a pattern emerging: his eyes spook me into silence, and his voice gives me permission to move. I lean forward and touch his face, just to make sure this supernatural man is tangible. He blinks at the contact, and I cannot decide if I am happy or sad to lose sight of his eyes for a moment.

"You're real," I say lamely, my hand still cradling his warm face.

"Of course I am!"

The man gives a small laugh. The sound is of it is not bemused or superior or pitying, like I have heard in so many other Capitol people, but almost musical. As the muscles in his face move, I see a fine scar that starts under his left eye and probably curves around underneath my hand. No dyes, no tattoos, and no apparent interest in cosmetic surgery. This man continues to soundly defy everything I know to be the norm.

I pull away, like I shouldn't be touching him, and he focuses on me again. A minute shift in his gaze tells me that it's my turn to unfreeze myself, but I can't think of what to say to this unsettling man whose only crime is being a person who manages to do what all my other clients do without being like them at all. It takes me a moment, but I realize that I don't like this man knowing my name because I don't know his. Apparently, I _want_ to know.

"What do I call you?" I ask. I attempt to inject my voice with its usual level of cool, but I don't believe for a second that it works on this man. With that question finally asked, a million others grab my attention: _He's brought me books? Why has he brought me books?_ I tear my eyes away from his, hoping to look at the titles of those books, but I can't see them. _He knows I can read. He knows I like to read. What happened last night? Why is he interested in _me?

The last thought has a sort of heavy echo. What could this man possibly want?

"My name is Jericho," he says in that voice of his, "and you and I have a lot to do today."


End file.
